


Revisionism

by capitainpistol



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Romance, Statutory Rape, Tragic Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-24
Updated: 2019-08-24
Packaged: 2020-09-25 22:43:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20379334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/capitainpistol/pseuds/capitainpistol
Summary: "And your duty to me and my husband?" Rhaenyra asked. "You will endure it so easily?"Criston took a deep breath and kept her gaze, the tightness in his chest throbbing all the way to his neck. "Not so easily, Rhaenyra, no."Eustace and Mushroom got it wrong. The night Rhaenyra Targaryen goes to the White Sword Tower to confront Criston Cole.





	Revisionism

**Author's Note:**

> Rhaenyra is 14/15 and Criston in his early 30s. Consensual and not overtly explicit, but tagged for underage/statutory rape as thats what it is. Yes, I hate myself a little yeeeet...

The instant Criston entered his room he knew she was there. He did not see her, but she was there.

A single candle burned down to its last on the table, the only light in the cavernous, high vaulted White Sword Tower, underneath it streams of wax dried on a scroll unrolled, twisted and recoiled. Rhaenyra had ignored the White Book entirely, and read all of the scroll instead, waiting for him. The chair was scooted back, turned to him, to the door. Pushed away and left there. The princess had done the same that morning.

Pass the curtains that barely moved in high summer, was his modest bed. A cot in truth. It was a warm night, but she was cocooned in her black cloak and his white sheets. 

Her foot was the first he saw of her, the other tucked under her ankle. Bottoms dirty from walking barefoot. The rest of her bundled up to her neck. She squeezed into herself as if she held someone in her dreams. 

Criston took a long look at her face. He rarely had the chance to do so, not without being mindful of everything and everyone else. He savored the quiet. Took her fine lines to memory, retracing over the girl already there. That was all he had. All he could hope. At the flutter of her full pink lips, his pulse quickened. Beautiful. She was beautiful. And she lay in his bed, waiting for him.

Cris walked to the pegs to hang his doublet, his footfalls making no sound. She seemed to sense he was there as well, and she stirred.

Rhaenyra… no, _the princess_, woke. Her voice was low and hoarse, not yet recovered from the screaming match with the King. 

"Ser?" 

She pushed herself up on elbows. her hair fell in an unkempt tussle down both shoulders. Arryn gold and Targaryen silver. Long. Painfully long. Still clinging to his pillows, to her face. Her violet-blue eyes puffy and red from crying. 

He wanted nothing more than to comb her hair out of her eyes and kiss her cheek. Hold her until they fell asleep. Sleep forever, for he could keep her forever. Safe and safe and his.

Criston cursed himself a fool. He unbuckled his sword belt and took his time taking it off. "What are you doing here...Your Grace? This is beyond folly."

From her startled, confused expression, he gathered she had not intended to fall asleep. Addressing her so formally also helped bring her out of dreams. 

"Your Grace?" Her smile was sad and bitter. Rhaenyra leaned closer to the dying flame, turning out to sit properly. Formalities had always been skewed with them. She moved on quickly to the reason she was there. "Not a word," the princess said, almost hollow. "You didn't say a word to Father."

He hung his belt by his white cloak… or would have. His white cloak lay on her lap, tightened under a fist. Criston sighed heavily. 

_She's not going to make this easy._

When had she ever…

_When did I mind?_

On his belt, sword and knife clinked together, against the wall and over the spikes of his morningstar on the next rung. Criston remained by his armor and weapons. By the door he forgot to lock. 

Give him a duel, a battle, his morningstar, he knew what to do. He could hold his lance and joust, stand to the finals in any melee, and he was not half so bad with a bow though it was not his preferred weapon. He knew exactly what to do. This? This had no good outcome. No one won or lost. And he was never good with women. _Rhaenyra is not a woman. Flowered, but still a girl._ Fifteen, by the Gods. Aye, another voice said. _And as bold as any prince of the blood. And she wants you_... In his deep shame he wanted her. He could no longer deny it.

Criston had loved her always, but it happened recently. The wanting. The restless nights. Dreaming of her. Dreaming of kissing her, touching her. Riding together again. He missed that. Im his dreams he held her. Held their children. Buried his face in her hair, hair exactly as it was now, fallen, lose, perfect. In his dreams Viserys took him by the shoulder and called him son.

"I see," she said icily, masking her hurt. "I know when I'm not wanted. I took your cloak… for warmth, ser. I apologize. Now I take my leave."

Rhaenyra flipped her hair away from her face, showing him her slim white neck. Holding back tears, white cloak in hand, she stood and walked to him. Her cloak spread open as it dragged behind her, heavier than she was. She wore the same dress she wore that morning. 

The Sisters called it high Jade fashion, from farthest east than east goes, where they wove silk from the tears of gods, material so supple it spread like waves on the skin, even on the hottest days. All the candles were out, but the one, making what he could see of her all the more enticing. 

_They'll think she woke here, if they chance upon us._

The entire castle heard her shouting earlier that day, heard the King's final word. Saw them together after. Had they seen…

"Calm her, Criston," warned the King, huge baby face turning red. "Or by the Ears of Meraxes, I will ship her off to Laenor's very shores on Driftmark this second, I will. She can fucking swim if none of the captains are ready."

Rhaenyra was not cowed, far from it. She had grown a foot taller since her last name day and though she was in truth the weight of one of the King's thighs, she could meet him eye to eye when few could. "It's the _Eyes_ of Meraxes, you-"

"Your Grace!" Ser Criston had interjected loudly. "Please pardon us." He had already picked her up. She was unafraid and nimble and strong, no longer the tiny thing he would whisk over his head and flip about.

King Viserys would have broken all his teeth, he clenched his jaw so hard. "Get her out of here, Cris." He said with a quiet tremor. Then he shouted: "BY THE EARS OF MERAXES, GET HER GONE!"

Criston met her blow of hands and curses until he straightened, her body pressed against him, sliding down. His manhood jolted without warning, her breasts like pillows on his face. Her scent filled him, familiar and strong. Criston went hard as a rock, and his cock grazed her thighs and between her legs and some of her tummy. Her anger was forgotten for half a heartbeat, hands drawn down his arms, but she came away, remembering where they were. 

Tall, he thought not for the first time. When did she get so tall? Their lips almost met. He felt her breath on his mouth. Wisps of her braided hair tbat had come undone in her rage against her father tickled his forehead.

"Let me go, ser!" She had screamed, smacking him across the face.

Criston stepped away, closing his hands over his breeches to hide his shame as casually as possible. His cheek bore the bright red imprint of her hand and three deeper bruises from her rings.

She had wanted to cry, he could tell. Cry and laugh and scream. So did he. 

"Ears of Meraxes, _Fa_!" Rhaenyra reclaimed her anger, ignoring what had just happened. "I must speak to my cousin," Rhaenyra said, her eyes going briefly to his hands. Too many eyes to ask him what she truly wanted, if she knew at all. 

The doors to his solar weren't shut. The King heard and shouted. "YOU GO ON, INSOLENT CHILD! LAENOR WILL DO HIS DUTY! CRISSSSSSS! Get in here!"

Rhaenyra turned on her heels and left the Red Keep on Syrax. Seen making for Driftmark. Criston spent the rest of the day listening to Viserys talk to his bees. Nearly ten years of serving her and only the last few seconds passed through his mind. 

Those few seconds and her last name day, the last time they had been close. The last time he touched her. Their last ride together, on her name day the year before, on their way back home after a weeklong sojourn through the westerlands to celebrate. She always rode with Criston if there was trouble, always in front. A heavy rain beat down on them, slowing their carts and wayns, breaking their column. He draped his white cloak over their heads to shield them, the way he had a hundred times before.

It was a sweet, slow ride and she took the reins, trembling under him. Since her flowering Criston had kept a chilling distance that had broken her heart day by day. He was better at accepting it, but the comfort of having her with him, truly with him, physically, had made him dizzy. He saw her every day, but he had missed her. He didn't understand it then, which was why he fell into the folly that followed.

He wrapped his hands around ber stomach as he rocked with her, the little hairs on her neck bristling his lips. She held her breath sharply whenever the pace quickened. Whenever it seemed like his hand would go a little higher or a little lower. Once it did, lower some. He had been speaking into her ear over the summer storm, her face turned on her shoulder to his, her nose to his mouth. It frightened him how badly he wanted to kiss her. How soothing was the scent of her hair. He softly touched her there, in the dark sweetness between her legs, when she made him laugh with something clever. And as she laughed she moaned softly. He forgot himself and touched her, and he sucked in his breath when she whimpered and pressed her back against him. 

He was never one to speak much, but he spoke to her then, the most he ever had to anyone. Things she already knew, but she listened to as if for the first time. Where he was from and his family, how they were all gone and how he found her, longing to serve. She held his hand over his and he did not move it away when she lowered it further. He told her more as her head fell back to his chest. They were drenched and cold, but she was warm and wet, slick and smooth. He dared to curl a finger over her furry mound. He had never known nerves so fierce, not since first mounting Syrax with her. The column was around them, the guards, the King. "Rhaenyra…," he whispered to warn her, to stifle those sweet sounds. "Rhaenyra, please." It only made her wetter, made her shudder. She clung to him and put his fingers between hers when he removed them and held her again. 

They never rode together again. They never spoke of what happened. Their courtesy became even more chilled. 

That same wild dragon who almost called the King, the Lord of the Seven Kingdoms, a dolt was now trembling in front of him.

Some madness made him say her name. "Rhaenyra… you know what they will do if they find you here."

"A number of things, no doubt, but that is not what I asked."

Criston could be ice too. "You asked nothing."

"Answer me," she commanded with none of the petulance of her youth. Endless years of obedience made him straighten at the command. "We were chewing each others heads off and you have never been shy before. Father listens to you and you let him sell me off to my cousin, a dear man I love and often share my clothes with."

"Is being clever worth your head? Our heads?"

"I think so." Rhaenyra grinned but her eyes were sad. "Do you want me to marry?"

Criston looked away as she approached. Looked around, wondering where she entered from if not the stairs. 

"There's a way out, isn't there? Another way, a secret way?" Criston did not wait for her to say yes. "You must leave."

"You must answer."

"You should have told me about the passage into here." Criston did not like that he did not know it. 

"It was bad enough I told you Maegor's Secret. But it seemed pointless to tell you about the one here. I was never going to use it, Father never did, and I do not believe Uncle knows of it, and we are the only ones who know of it. Be that as it may, I came to curse you, not to give you my maidenhead. I know what I risk coming here like this. And you have not answered my question, ser." She was close enough he could take back his white cloak. "Why didn't you say something?"

Criston couldn't be gentle. She had to get out of here. Had to.

"Pointless, you say. I say the same. I am baseborn. I serve. I do not broker royal marriages."

"Damn the soldier!" Rhaenyra quieted. "Tell me true." 

Criston hated this. He never said what they wanted to hear. And then they hated him after. As if he betrayed them. 

"Were you a prince it would be the same," Criston said. He told himself the same thing for months.

Rhaenyra looked into his eyes, anger and sadness piercing her beauty. It was her father's words, spoken less harshly but they were the same 

"Make allies. Fight enemies. Prepare for winter. Give the realm a King." Criston smiled a rare smile, just for her, as if he were saying goodbye to her. Suddenly, he realized he was. "Or another Queen. That is your duty."

"And your duty to me and my husband?" Rhaenyra asked. "You will endure it so easily?" 

Criston took a deep breath and kept her gaze, the tightness in his chest throbbing all the way to his neck. "Not so easily, Rhaenyra, no."

Rhaenyra finally let the tears fall. Slow and silent. "I will be married within the year."

"I know. Your Father mentioned when to his bees."

Rhaenyra smiled and shook her head, but she steadied when Criston tenderly wiped them away. "I knew I should have been naked."

Criston choked hard, laughing. "Princess…"

"Call me Rhaenyra. I love… I love when you call me that."

"Rhaenyra," he said softly, undone by her eyes pleading to him to… to what? 

"Kiss me."

"Rhaenyra, please."

He swallowed down, found those flowery words that usually failed him when he tried to say them. "I have great affection for you, princess. I am sworn to you. But… this? This is not… possible. A sweet tale you will remember fondly when you are as old as Jaehaerys. You do not love me."

Rhaenyra kissed him, caressing his neck to pull him in, an unstoppable current too powerful to resist.

The tension throbbing in his chest spread everywhere, down his arms and up his ears, to his toes and back up, right to his manhood. She pressed against it, slid her tongue into his mouth. Moaned.

Criston followed the silk over her new curves to the knots on her back. He undid them and the dress fell in the quietest hush, their breaths louder than its landing. Criston didn't know he was moving them, that he had picked her up, just that he was kissing her and she was naked before him, under the shadows. He spread his hands down the heat of her back to lay her on his bed, the left side of her cloak spreading open, exposing her shoulder, breast, half her flat belly and her bare hip, black velvet covering her right side and the mound between her legs. 

Criston sat back and went deadly quiet. He caressed her thigh tenderly, slowly, the way men honed swords they cherished, and pulled her leg straight, kissed her toes.

She reached for him and drew his face to her bare nipple. Before suckling, he grazed his lips over the dark hard points. With his nose he let the right.side slip away and sucked on the other, dropping his head in resignation when she watched her back for him.

"Gods…" He thanked, he cursed, he pleaded...

Her belly shook under the heat of his mouth. He kissed her. Licked ber. Nuzzled on her neck.

Rhaenyra squeezed him, spread her legs for him."Kiss me." Rhaenyra lifted his face and spread open the rest of the cloak. "Love me."

The light was almost gone. He kissed her, as she commanded. And he loved her.


End file.
